Stan
I took my pen to the paper but nobody asked me to write. Paraphrasing
the old Gracie Fields song, I find it fits my old mate Stan Tracey
perfectly. Stan has been voted Composer Of The Year, LPs of his music
have been lauded as the best ever to come out of Britain, much has
been made of his originality by critics, and countless words have
been written proclaiming his creative talent. It can be said that
Polls and Critics don’t know what they’re talking about, but in Stan’s
case there are dozens of colleagues willing to back up these praises.
The best he may be, but those beings in the position to hand out commissions
are apparently content with second–best.

Stan hasn’t written the music for a Documentary,
never mind a feature film; he hasn’t written a theme for a TV programme,
never mind the background music for a series. What an extraordinary
state of affairs! Jazz historians will no doubt write of Stan Tracey
that he wrote for himself—and they will be telling the truth.

How many people will ever consider that he wrote
for himself because nobody else asked him to write for them? I wonder
if the recent influx of immigrants will ever give rise to Afro-Asian-Jazz-Fusions?

Brain Drain
The recent heart and kidney transplants have got me thinking. What
will the scene be when they are able to do it with brains? Musicians
are prone to getting themselves killed in car crashes and it fascinates
me to imagine some quite ordinary type of person waking from a brain
transplant to find some way–out musician’s brain running his body.

Or what about swaps? People are ever keen to tell
you how you should live your life. Why not lend them your body for
a couple of years and put yourself into cold storage? Better still,
how about lending libraries? When an interesting person dies his brain
is put into storage and library members may borrow it for a week at
a time to enable them to dig the scene through his nut.

Heaven forbid such sorcery, but it should happen
in my lifetime . . .

Kerfuffle
What a kerfuffle about the forthcoming Olympic Games and Apartheid!
I am pleased that the same sort of situation did not arise when we
were able to enjoy Miriam Makeba, the show King Kong and all the wonderful
troupes of African drummers and dancers that have graced our theatres
over the years. The peoples of the world will lose a lot if we really
begin segregation. It is my belief that the free exchange of individuals
who excel in anything except killing is our only salvation.

Backing out
How can the musical fraternity Back Britain? Working extra time would
seem to be highly impractical. A half hour extra on a broadcast would
cause havoc with Continuity and playing an extra Symphony after a
concert would get everyone home in the early hours of the morning.
Musicians making a free album would flood an already saturated market.
It would seem that players are in no position to help out.

Not so the writers. I have decided to double my output.
Twice the number of notes and double the tempo. Double our output
and still finish on time. Too great a strain on players? Well, double
their intake of beer, thus backing Britain through her breweries.

Progress
As a small boy I can recall a disabled ex–serviceman who had found
a novel way of extracting coppers from more fortunate passers–by.
He had converted an old perambulator into a mobile entertainment.
On this pram he had painted strange devices explaining his circumstances
and also giving a history of his military prowess. Within the pram
was an old wind–up gramophone that had an enormous horn attached.

His only helpmate was a small, sad–eyed mongrel dog
wearing a red–white–and–blue ruff who sat patiently on the pavement
next to the pram holding a cap in his mouth to collect the pennies.

The man’s ‘act’ was to play well–worn 78s of a martial
or sentimental nature after having announced what was to come. While
the well–worn needle scratched its way to the play–off he would exhibit
pictures he had painted of Royalty and well known people. The record
over, he would repeat the process ad lib until he moved to another
pitch.

The cap always held a fair number of coins, so I
can only presume that his public dug him, After over thirty years,
in this highly sophisticated, technological age I switch on my TV
set and what do I see? Alan Freeman sitting at a contraption straight
out of Doctor Who, with pictures changing at his command. He is also
announcing every record that comes on! The only thing missing is an
electronic hound collecting the ill–gotten gains! Maybe the highly
technological name for this hound is A Very Shrewd Agent.

I don’t understand why, having reached near-perfection
in recording techniques, makers of some records insist on distorting
everything they record. How contrary man is!

I don’t want euphoria
What a lot of music comes over the radio and TV (I use the word ‘music’
in its widest possible meaning, to include all sounds made on instruments).
Of course there is plenty of chat, but very little talking sense.
Music is used mostly as a soporific. As long as something is making
a noise the general populace appears to be content to be lulled into
a mild hypnotic state. I suppose it excuses them from contemplating
what in hell is really happening. Next, music is used as a sort of
‘barker’ to get us to “roll up and buy,” or do, something or the other.
Lastly, it is occasionally and grudgingly used as an end in itself.

I must admit that I have often heard over the air
pieces of music I had no idea existed, and have been very pleased
to be introduced to such pieces. But more often than not it is the
same old sameness coming at you day after day. When I need music I
find it much more pleasant to hear it on my hi–fi player at leisure.
I don’t enjoy the yakkerings of pop, the smugness of opinion programmes,
the inane wittiness of games programmes and the music programme running
its own Top Twenty. I feel a desire to listen to a human voice talking—be
it views on educating the young or an account of Sir Tranmere Wimples
as his butler knew him; I don’t care. I just like to be able to hear
someone talking sense for a change instead of the twaddle and gobbledegook
that passes for conversation these days. Puerile patter envelopes
us completely and we find ourselves inhaling it like so much carbon
monoxide and poisoning our reason. On top of this we are saturated
with music from waking to sleep. There is so much noise going on we
tend to listen to nothing. We fight our way through the opiate clouds
not knowing what sense or music is anymore.

The implications of such a state of affairs are frightening.
To be an entertainer of any type puts you in the interior decorating
business: you provide aural wallpaper to cover the walls that surround
our mass–produced, disposable civilisation. I don’t like the wallpaper
pattern. I want to see a few cracks and blemishes. I want to hear
human voices talking about something that is, or has been, important.
I don’t want euphoria. I just want reassurance that there is another
human being who truly believes that what he has to say is of some
importance.

It is all too easy to sit back and let others think
for you. It is the simplest and most effective way yet that man has
devised to control his less ambitious brothers. Beware. Just as pit
ponies lost the use of their eyes, so will we lose the power to think
for ourselves.

When you need to hear music, listen to it on your
hi-fi set or use the radio and TV with much discrimination. Big Brother
is nearer than you care to believe !